Phenylamine-Functionalized Graphene–Copper Composites with High Thermal Conductivity: Implications for Thermal Dissipation

Abstract

Developing highly efficient thermal management techniques is crucial in order to achieve the best performance of electronic equipment. Here, a delocalized conjugated system was established by the conjugation of sp 2 orbitals in phenylamine groups and a delocalized big π bond in graphene to construct an electron thermal conduction route. Then, the abundant π electrons in graphene can be transferred to the adjacent copper unimpededly, leading to a remarkable thermal conductivity. These results demonstrate that the copper substrate deposited with phenylamine-functionalized graphene (PA−Gr−Cu) shows a high thermal conductivity of 506 W m −1 k −1 , which is 30.8 and 44.2% higher than those of the pristine graphene−copper composite (Gr−Cu) and copper (Cu), respectively. Placed on a heat source heated from 30 to 210 °C within 5 min, the top surface temperature of PA−Gr−Cu increases to 198 °C rapidly, whereas those of Gr−Cu and Cu only increase gently to 88 and 59 °C. This work demonstrates that phenylamine with a pair of lone electrons in the N atom shows superiority as an intermediate molecule to link graphene and copper to establish a delocalized conjugated system. This innovation provides another solution to establish a conjugated structure between graphene and copper to construct an electron thermal conduction route with remarkable thermal conduction properties and will promote the research on the electron thermal conduction route for graphene-based metal matrix composites in the application of thermal dissipation.

Graphene-Enhanced CuW Composites for High-Voltage Circuit Breaker Electrical Contacts

“…The sharp G peak at 1580 cm −1 represents the carbon of sp 2 hybrid structure, which proves the existence of graphene, while the D peak at 1350 cm −1 represents the carbon of a sp 3 hybrid structure, and indicates that a certain defect structure exist. The ratio of 2D peak to G peak can be used to determine that the graphene here is not a monolayer structure, but a certain multilayer graphene aggregation structure [34]. In summary, it can be proved that graphene exists in CuW composites, and it should exist at the interface between copper and tungsten to fill gaps and make up for defects.…”

Preparation of graphene/copper composites with a thiophenol molecular junction for thermal conduction application

“…Further details of the measurement and calculation can be found in our previous studies. 31,32 The infrared thermal imaging scanner (TiS, Fluke) was employed for the thermal imaging analysis of the surface temperature of samples.…”